The Beckoning
by NordicStorm
Summary: Draco Malfoy has one thing in his life that he will protect at all costs, no matter who stumbles into his private affairs.
1. Default Chapter

            The Beckoning 

Draco woke with a violent start; a cold sweat encased his tired body. He slowed his fevered breathing as best he could and pulled himself to a sitting position. Draco's tense muscles screamed in exhaustion as he took in the room around him; as if trying to assure himself that there was no threat lurking in a shadowy corner of his quarters. No presence was there, but Draco's fragile nerves could not be put to rest. 

He grasped his wand from its resting place on the self next to his bed and forced his body to rise. Walking silently towards the large window; Draco uttered soft words and several candles flared into life, casting a weary light in the drafty room. He pulled the dark green curtains aside and scanned the expansive Hogwarts grounds. The full moon lit the peaceful land; its reassuring glow lightened Draco's worry. He watched the play of water on the small banks of the lake and tried to remember what had woken him.

I was having a dream, Draco thought, a pleasant dream. A sound woke me, he recalled, someone screaming from somewhere far away.

 Draco cursed as he remembered the prickling feeling that had accompanied that scream. It was a feeling he knew very well, a feeling that he should not have forgotten for even the slightest of moments. He was being summoned.

Draco kept his panic-ridden feelings at bay as he quickly pulled his robes on over his sleeping clothes and made his way out of the luxurious Headboy rooms and into the hallway. His crisp black shoes made no noise on the stone floor when he swept passed elaborate statues and unused classrooms. He silently thanked the Gods that he did not have to bear the cold of the dungeons; he had been given special accommodations due to his position.

Draco slowed his pace and tried to remember exactly where his caller dwelled. Draco took a deep breath and attempted to access the cord that held them together, the normally strong bond seemed frail somehow. Draco was overtaken by a strong sense of worry; he prayed that nothing bad had happened. His contact could not answer in words, but put a fragmented image in his mind of swooping shelves and dusty books. 

A few moments later the familiar musty smell hit him as Draco opened the doors to the library. Quickly looking around, he made his way to the back of the room where desks were provided for working students. From the right, a voice captured his attention.

"It took you long enough you sorry piece of filth," the figure smiled. "I was worried."

He was in his normal form: that of a tall dark-haired man of about twenty years.

"Wynfrith," Draco began. "Are you alright?" 

"Oh I'm jolly good," Wynfrith lapsed into his usual mockery of Draco's British accent. "But it seems, old chap, that I have been _summoned_."

Wynfrith moved aside and Draco saw, for the first time, a lone figure slumped over a large pile of books. Hell, he cursed, Hermione Granger has got to be the biggest pain-in-the-ass that I have ever met in my life. 

Disclaimer: I own nothing.


	2. Two

The Beckoning  
Draco cursed inwardly at the scene before him. Granger sat in an ancient library chair pulled up close to the table; a crudely drawn pentacle was etched onto the stone floor beneath her. Candles were positioned, still ignited, on each arm of the star. The room was smoky and filled with a heady scent, Draco knew all to well that that happening was due to the incense that she had burned.  
Just what I need, he thought sourly, a thoroughly passed-out teenaged witch surrounded by enough ancient magic ritual tools to set the entire castle into pandemonium. If I could just get closer, maybe I could strangle her...  
Draco's thoughts were abruptly cut short by an impatient false cough given off by the man in the chair.  
"What are your orders, oh Holy Captain?" He was as sarcastic and bitter as ever, but Draco had never been fooled by Wynfrith before and he wasn't fooled now, this bastard could give a show to put old Peeves to shame.  
"Shut up, idiot, I'm trying to think," Draco replied caustically.  
"Thinking, is that what that face was? The one where you screw up your eyes and stick out your tongue like a monkey? Is that what they call it in this world? Thinking?"  
"Wynfrith," Draco said warningly.  
The black haired man sighed dramatically and turned to look at Granger.  
"Who is she? Why did she call me? Wake her up, boy. I want some answers." He switched his mood quickly from playful to angry.  
"Her name is Hermione Granger," Draco said, walking closer to her. "She's the top of our class and I had previously thought she was as pure as a damn saint. So I haven't a clue as to why she would want to summon a demon, much less one of your stature. And you know as well as I do that a witch or wizard performing the tasks of a magician is very taxing on their energy, she won't wake for hours."  
Draco stood silently next to the girl and picked up the top book of the stack on the table. The book gave off a slight wind that made the room around them creak in protest. Even touching a book of this caliber would have made any other wizard shiver in unease, but Draco was very used to its feel, very used to its power.  
The leather bound book was open to the one page that Draco knew by heart, the one page that would increase his anger towards the girl. At the top it was labeled: Wynfrith: Upper Scale Demon  
The title gave no hint as to the power of the man sitting not ten feet away from Draco, and the article beneath it shed little more light on his abilities:  
  
Wynfrith is one of the most well hidden demons in existence.  
What little is known of him is documented by the local government  
in several diverse areas. Wynfrith is famous not for his odd fetish  
for  
human companionship, but his fierce loyalty and protection of the  
people he has attached himself to. He is the lone cause of the  
disastrous fire of Castle Henry that destroyed the entire family of  
Henry Van Hildas in the eleventh century. It is said that Wynfrith  
started the fire because the head of the family had apparently  
kidnapped the young daughter of the peasant farmer he had  
been working with at the time. Wynfrith is an upper scale demon  
of the highest ranking and there has been no recording of a successful  
summoning of this creature. He is dangerous and spontaneous, it is  
highly recommended that this demon is not summoned.  
  
Draco slammed the dusty book shut loudly, but quickly regretted doing so when the resulting sound echoed through the empty room.  
"What am I supposed to do now?" He whispered harshly.  
"Well," Wynfrith drawled. "Unless you wish for the girl to get caught and more attention to be brought to creatures like me, I suggest you do something with the brute and that hideous mark on the floor before the castle awakens for the day, the sun is about to rise."  
"True," Draco admitted. "I'll put the books back and clean up the mess. Then I'll do something with the girl and get some answers. You had better get back to your realm before some idiot professor comes and finds a demon sitting in the library."  
Draco expected a reply containing bitterness over him referring to Wynfrith as just a 'demon', or something to that extent, but he didn't expect what he heard.  
"You're forgetting something kid," he said. "The girl summoned me."  
Draco paused from re-shelving the books, "You mean she actually created a tie?"  
"Why do you think I'm sitting so close to the thing?" Wynfrith answered with his nose in the air.  
Indeed, he sat in chair about ten feet away from Granger, who was still sprawled out over her own chair.  
"Oh bloody hell," Draco murmured. "I guess you have to stay with her then?" "It seems that way," he looked thoughtful. "I wonder what the old mum was so worried about that she summoned a high ranking demon without training or the proper type of basic magic."  
"Without training?" Draco could honestly not care less about the troubles of the girl at this point; all he wanted to do was to sever the link she had created and to go back to his warm bed.  
"Of course," Wynfrith replied. "She has the table inside the pentacle. Not even a first year novice of a magician wouldn't know that the pentacle needed to be unobstructed. I'm surprised that she succeeded in pulling me from my realm in the first place, I'm even more surprised she created a decent link. She must be a powerful witch to stray not only to a type of magic that is not suited for her kind, but to be able to perform so strongly without help from a magician."  
Draco growled in the back of his throat in frustration, "She is the top of our class. But she is obviously naïve and irrational."  
"Aren't those Gryffindor colors I see? Do I sense some hostility? Are you two rivals of some sort?" Despite the extreme seriousness of the state they were in, Wynfrith still could not help but to bait the boy.  
Draco knew he better get moving quickly, the grin on Wynfrith's face was all Draco needed to know that he was in a trouble-causing mood.  
"Do you want me to leave you here? I could just walk away and leave you and the girl here to see what Dumbledore can make of your situation."  
"You wouldn't leave your friend in such a state would you, my boy?" Wynfrith knew very well that Draco would not leave him un-aided.  
"Let's go," Draco said, rolling his eyes. "Just back to my room for now, I guess."  
He cast a quick cleaning spell on the pentacle and finished putting back all the books. He slipped the candle into a bag sitting at Granger's feet and looked around again, making sure everything was normal.  
"I do wish we could just leave her here, she'd get into a mess of trouble," Draco said wistfully.  
"Sorry to rain on your hopes and dreams, mate, but she's kind of tied to me. And you know what the ministry of your kind likes to do with harmless little imps like me. I'd rather not get locked up in a metal box for the next ten centuries if that's all right with you."  
"Understandable," Draco grinned and nodded towards Granger. "But you get to carry that in return for my troubles."  
Wynfrith gave off one of his famous staged sighs and then shrugged. "That's fine with me, mate, she looks alright to me."  
Draco cringed as Wynfrith carefully pulled the girl into his arms as if she weighed nothing. Hell, to him, she probably did weigh nothing.  
Draco picked up the bag and, on second thought, pulled the book with Demons written across the spine off the shelf and slipped it into the bag. As they silently crossed the castle, Draco brooded over many thoughts, one of them being: What kind of a school library carries books about demons? 


End file.
